It started with a pain. There was nothing I could do. A stinging sensation at the pit of my stomach. I couldn’t care less. The movie was gripping. But so was the pain. Finally, it occurred to me that I should go see what was so wet between my legs. I get up unsteadily after telling my father to fill me in the story when I get back and rush to the bathroom. I have read about it, heard about it, been talked to about ‘it’. But there is nothing like the smell and sight of crimson blood in your panties that alarms the little child in you. Since I still have to cope up with the shock of it, I yell for my father. He rushes in, takes a look at my panties and disappears. He comes back with clean panties with a sanitary napkin in it and asks me to put it on. That was my first period. Dramatic and sweet.
It was hard, coming to terms with the fact that your life can ooze out of you, if you don’t create one inside. I found it disgusting, surreal and somehow, demeaning. The most popular discussion amongst us girls whenever the term period came up was, ‘why don’t boys have it? Why are we punished? I wish I was a boy.’ Or variations of the same. It was a burden. To be cranky, to adjust to the monotony of the whole affair and the self-righteous indignation at being discriminated against, by nature. Or was it the fact that somehow, I had grown up? One tiny spring inside me bursts open the dam and suddenly I had to be responsible for my actions. I had to make sure that boys looked up and didn’t wander ten inches south of my face. I had to adjust to the deep awareness that now, I could be a mother. Too much to ask from a kid. At first though, it was seemingly benign. It was just a process that was useless apparently. Why is my blood being drained out of me for no reason?
The implication of this flow of feminine abomination was revealed to me when I was about twelve. My parents, tired of me not connecting the dots, sat me down and explained the process of human coitus and pregnancy. It was an ‘aha!’ moment. So that was what the fuss was about. Looking back, I must have been the dumbest kid around to have had all the information about every process, but not to have sequenced them coherently. So, my undulating pink folds were not supposed to be ravaged, but caressed. It was my sanctum and I had to make sure nothing bad happened to it.
The most boring part about menstruation is reproductive hygiene. My mother, being into adolescent education, made sure I read a lot about it and practised it. Wash it properly, three times a day, with soap. Make sure I don’t use the sanitary pad too long. Wait, what about the cloths into which the damn liquid spilled accidentally? Do I throw them away? No. I wash them. Soak them in warm water for a while and wash them. Trust me when I say that quite a few of my inner articles of clothing have ended up mysteriously disappearing in the initial stages into the waste bin because I was too disgusted with the slime.
There were perks though. I could easily tell my teacher I was ‘sick’ and hence I couldn’t attend the classes the previous day. A stomach ache, according to a close friend, was ample reason to not attend functions. One grievance which constantly arose was that god (theist then) didn’t allow any conversation with him then. But of course, there is the demon that lurks behind the tree when you think the worst is over. PMS. The acronym that sends shivers down the spines of women and the men in their proximity. I couldn’t figure out at first, the mood swings, the fights, the anger, tears. It was hard indeed, especially since I had a brother who made it a point to irritate me or make me cry whenever possible.
Those were the beginnings. It has been fifteen years since my first shock. As with me, my period has also settled into a comfortable rhythm. Breaking at times during stress, but otherwise keeping pace with the moon. It has been a pleasure, being a woman. The whole emotional melodrama has attenuated to one or two sobbing sessions during my PMS. I am in love with the whole process, though I am not a cultural feminist. But, I feel empowered that this blood that people regard waste symbolizes my ability to nurture life. It makes me warm when I think that every drop I bleed is somehow for the future. As if I am accumulating it for my kids, to nurture them better. Most importantly, the absence of the sense of belonging has long vanished. There is no more a question of who I am and what I should do with the knowledge that I am capable of forming gametes.
There is this belief that PMS is the worst part of a period. It is not. It is constantly being degraded as a piece of meat because of the red stream. I am cared for, protected and kept safe. I am also violated, considered inferior and treated unfairly. I am not a lady, nor am I a slut. I dislike it intensely when someone is chivalrous to me. I am capable of opening the door myself.
The one reading this might wonder why I decided to write on this. It originated from an article that I had read and posted as my status in Facebook. A beautiful article about a woman’s first period. A few of my friends who began reading it thought that I had written it and that made them transfixed to the entire thread. It was then that I realized this was something that is considered too private. I had to see if I was capable of letting the stigma that ran through even me about something so magnificent, if I can talk about it in the public domain without feeling naked. I am glad I could.
When I was around seven, I opened my closet in the morning, as usual, for my uniform. What I saw was something weird and magnificent. On top of my entire section of uniforms, lying very comfortably in its reddest glory was a cat, covered with blood and placenta. Three kittens were near her, crawling about in the mild sunlight reflecting off the mirrors on the door. The slight meows filled the air, as they tightened their grip on life more and more, with each passing second. Tell me, how is that disgusting? If it is not, then my blood which is just another version of the same should be as magnificent a phenomenon as that.
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